In Her Mind's Eye
by Esmerald tears
Summary: Even though she struggles, and struggles hard, to block him from her mind, he carves a hole in the wall she has managed to build, and he returns, in a way.


**In her mind's eye**

A/N: Man, it's been a long time. I was just getting started with the ship (back then when I wasn't hopelessly in love with it) when this came to mind, and it practically wrote itself. Blame my fingers.

Disclaimer: except for the, uh, '_plot'_, for lack of a better word, nothing is mine.

*

She imagines him coming back to Konoha almost every day. Even though she struggles, and struggles hard, to block him from her mind, he carves a hole in the wall she has managed to build, and he returns, in a way. So Sakura imagines herself gazing at him in silence, across the street, the moment he walks in through the gates of the village. In those daydreams, she doesn't start crying out of happiness, doesn't run to him, doesn't even add the '-kun' to his name. Because if he can be cold, she can be cold too. Haruno Sakura can look down at him; _will_ look down at him, for she is no longer twelve years old. Perhaps after the encounter, and in the safety of her room, she will cry for weeks to come, but in front of him not a tear will cloud her eye.

There are other times when she simply looks back and analyzes. She feels ashamed of the things she did to get his attention. She feels angered when she remembers how he slapped away the apple slices she had prepared for him. She wants to cry at the memory of finding him at the Sound base, and then losing him again. In her mind's eye, she corrects those situations, makes them better, makes them worse; she tries to understand, to dissect them, to stash them in her subconscious so they won't ever bother her again. She never quite succeeds.

Sometimes, when she is really angry, she imagines that they are standing face to face, separated by a battle field, and she is looking at him as disdainfully as he looks at her. She imagines that she won't feel anything but pity and disgust. Sakura pictures herself fighting against him like he has never meant anything to her at all, like he never existed in the first place, and Sasuke Uchiha is to her just a foreign, snotty kid getting high on a stupid power trip. And because of this, she does not hesitate when she has to hurt him. She doesn't feel pain, because he would be no one to her.

She knows she'd never truly harm him. Knock his daylights out, sure. It's not like he doesn't deserve it either way. Probably break a few bones if he gets too difficult.

But never killing him, or crippling him permanently. Never that.

From time to time, she lets her mind wander, and it takes her to dark paths. What if, back then, he had said 'fine, Sakura. Come with me to Sound'? What if he had accepted her offer to help him with his revenge? _We would have left with him,_ Inner-Sakura never fails to answer. At twelve, as she waited for him to answer her, she had already been planning what she would be taking and what was to be left behind: her forehead protector, for example. Would she have to draw a scratch on it? Couldn't she just leave it, unscathed, until she returned home?

Sakura can't help chuckling sadly when she recalls that. Out of all the things to be worried about, her twelve year old self was concerned about the aesthetics of her hiate-e. Not with abandoning her family and friends, not with the implications of joining Sasuke at Sound, not even with the very concept of revenge. She just didn't want him to leave her.

She was kind of stupid that way. She hasn't changed much since then.

Sakura knows she must move on. She wants to.

She simply can't. And that's when she imagines herself leaving Konoha, looking for Sasuke on her own, joining him, and guilt weights down on her, and self hatred consumes her. He has never wanted her. He sees her as a weak, mediocre kunoichi, the tag along, the simpering fangirl. He never showed any remotely romantic interest in her. Truth to be told, Sakura doesn't know if Sasuke truly disliked her from the beginning or not.

How can she know, if hate is apparently all he feels?

The wind picks up, blowing the strands of hair away from her face, and the clouds hide the moon, just like they did on that night, so long ago now. The smell of the dry leaves pooling at her feet fill her eyes to the brim with inexplicable tears. The hard, cold surface of the stone bench is not comfortable, but she doesn't care. Her fingers are freezing; her toes are curled inside her nin sandals.

She sits alone at the entrance of Konoha, like she has been doing since they played that race against time upon the confirmation of the battle between the Uchiha brothers, weeks ago.

They had been so close. So close to Sasuke... And they had arrived too late.

The salty water gathering in her eyes overflows and runs down her face, though her lower lip does not tremble.

Sakura just waits.

He must come back, he will come back.

She mounts guard at the same spot he placed her on, unconscious, all those years ago. Her body vibrates with pent up anxiousness and despair, while her soul also shakes, full of contradicting feelings she cannot quite place a finger on. The clouds move away, and the moonlight lightens her tear stained face.

It won't be long now, she knows.

And so she waits.

*

A/N: *sigh* this is my first SasuSaku story ever. Therefore, I hope it was at least enjoyable, and reasonably in character. If you feel like reviewing, that'd be lovely!


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